Will the Baltic multiannual plan meet the CFP objectives?
Progress has halted on the Baltic Multiannual Plan for cod, sprat and herring since July. We have high expectations when trilogue resumes today that the Council, Parliament and Commission can make steps towards an agreement over the exploitation levels of fish stocks. We are pushing hard for the Council to respect the agreement in the reformed Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) and set fishing limits below exploitation levels that can sustain a maximum sustainable yield (<FMSY), as proposed by the Parliament. However, the Council has until now maintained its support for the Commissionโs proposal for ranges of fishing mortality rates where upper ends of the ranges exceed FMSY.
Baltic fishing quotas for 2016 were set during the October Council with disappointing outcomes. Seven out of ten of the quotas exceed scientifically advised catches, with the vulnerable cod stocks hit particularly hard. Whilst the Council argues that their motivation is to protect the fishing industry by avoiding large quota cuts, their own policies risk the collapse of the stocks and the fisheries they are trying to protect.
The EU has received criticism from respected fisheries scientists Sidney Holt and Rainer Froese that Council is not following the reformed CFP โ by setting Baltic fishing limits above FMSY. They further express concern about the inclusion of high fishing mortality rates in the ranges proposed for the Baltic Multiannual Plan not only continuing this trend in the Baltic, but also having cascading effects on other developing multiannual plans in the EU.
In this newsletter we also highlight the introduction of the landing obligation in the North Sea, North Western and South Western Waters and a new report by Parliament outlining their position on the developing Technical Measures Framework.
Wendy Broadgate
Director, Fisheries Secretariat (FISH)